Political scientist comments on the meaning of Trump’s words about coronavirus

30.03.2020 13:11

Share

Donald Trump considered death of 200 thousand Americans from the new coronavirus to be “ a good” scenario. As political scientist Vladimir Shapovalov noted, such estimates are quite in the style of the current US President.

The United States would lose more than two million citizens from the coronavirus if the government did not take appropriate measures to limit mortality to 200 thousand people, and this is a good result, the US President Donald Trump said at a press conference on Sunday.

“If we manage to reduce the number of deaths to 100-200 thousand people, this means we have done a good job”, – the reporters quoted Trump as saying.

Deputy director of the Institute of History and Politics of the Moscow State Pedagogical University Vladimir Shapovalov commeted on the situation:

“This is Trump’s general line of behavior, he’s always self-confident, he always expounds certain truths that he considers absolute. It’s in his style, voters love him. And I must admit that Trump really impresses American citizens in this sense. The present statement is also a desire to demonstrate that he is keeping the situation under control, that the measures taken help save the lives of American citizens. The real situation, of course, is far from the confidence that he radiates. More recently, Trump promised that the epidemic in America will stop by Easter – it’s already obvious that this will not happen. In fact, the USA is breaking records in terms of the number of infected people, mortality is constantly increasing, and these are serious problems that plunge the American economy and society into a crisis”, – Vladimir Shapovalov said.

However, no one has canceled the election campaign, so Trump makes optimistic statements as a presidential candidate, the political scientist noted.

“We must understand that the American President makes such statements, in fact, in the framework of the primaries. His ratings are growing, this is quite natural, because it is very important for citizens to hope that the authorities are doing everything right, they are looking for protection in a pandemic situation,” – concluded Vladimir Shapovalov.

The World Health Organization on March 11 announced an outbreak of a new coronavirus infection COVID-19 with a pandemic. According to the latest WHO data, more than 634 thousand cases of infection have been recorded in the world, almost 30 thousand people have died.